Game 7: One chance, and one chance only

“It’s in the hands of the hockey gods now. They control this thing. But what a great scene it will be.” — Vancouver Canucks assistant coach Ron Smith, June 12, 1994, before Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final.

“We were within a goalpost of tying it up.” — Vancouver Canucks captain Trevor Linden, June 14, 1994, after Game 7.

Some Game 7s are like a bridge wired to blow, and the tension builds and billows and flares until, the next thing you know, you’re white-knuckling your armchair. And some Game 7s are like a bridge that collapses, and the losing team is suddenly grasping at air, wishing they could just start over, reset the clock, and just get one more chance to get it right.

But the whole point of a Game 7 is that you get one chance, and one chance only. The Boston Bruins have faced this scenario twice in these Stanley Cup playoffs; the Vancouver Canucks found themselves on the precipice once. Both these teams went to overtime in Game 7 in the first round, meaning they were a bounce from the void. But that bounce never came, and Wednesday night, they will play the last game of the season, with the whole of the season on the line.

And when it is over we will have witnessed one of the dirtiest, strangest, emotional Stanley Cup finals in recent memory, full of cheap shots and misbehaviour and dueling accusations, along with games that were played on the equivalent of black ice in one city, and white ice in the other. Hell, a new rule was created to keep players from thrusting their fingers in the faces of other players, which makes this the first final that has ever been given the Sean Avery treatment.

Players’ seasons were ended — Boston’s Nathan Horton was concussed on a late hit by Vancouver’s Aaron Rome, who was suspended; Vancouver’s Mason Raymond suffered a vertebrae compression fracture on an unnecessary and awkward hit from Johnny Boychuk, who was not suspended.

And while every game in Boston has been a rout — 8-1, 4-0, 5-2 — every game in Vancouver has been a one-goal tightrope, with the Canucks scoring the winning goals with 18.5 seconds left to break a scoreless tie in Game 1, 11 seconds into overtime in Game 2, and early in the third period to mark another clean scoresheet in Game 5. If those games were any indication, this Game 7 will have a lot of fans on both sides of the aisle feeling, for most of the game, like they are going to vomit.

And they should remember that feeling. I remember it, as a 20-year-old in Vancouver in 1994. It ended poorly, of course, but it was as vital as you could get, as a sports fan. There is another way to look at it, if you’re playing the game — during that 1994 final, Mr. Smith, the Canucks assistant, put it best. “Here’s the thing about elimination,” he said, as quoted in a column written by Cam Cole, then of the Edmonton Journal. “There’s a different feeling. You charge up the hill, knowing you’re looking in the face of disaster, but you charge anyway — and if it’s your time, if your name’s on the bullet, so be it.”

That is how those who love the Bruins and the Canucks should feel, but likely won’t. Instead, they will feel so unbearably alive, until the result becomes clear.

This is the NHL’s sixth Game 7 for the Stanley Cup in the past 10 seasons; it is the third to involve a Canadian team, with a dam ready to burst. Before that, when Vancouver got this far in 1994, Nathan LaFayette hit a post in the third period, and probably heard that sound in his dreams for years. When Edmonton reached this stage in 2006 they were all but extinguished before the puck was dropped, with a backup goaltender and a tank full of fumes.

And when Calgary got to Game 7 in 2004 they lost a tight 2-1 game in the last days before the lockout, in which Jarome Iginla could not muster a shot and Ruslan Fedotenko scored the two necessary goals for Tampa Bay, and Tampa’s Brad Richards said afterwards, “It could have gone either way. Basically, we might have won one more battle, made one more big save. Obviously, we scored one more goal. But when two teams go to one goal in seven games, that’s how it should be.”

That is how it should be. We can all argue over which one of these teams is less likable or more culpable, and Lord knows the more passionate of their fans have done so. But however they got here, this is their chance. Every decision, every bounce, every play will be irrevocable, and the chance could vanish at any time.

But at the end one of them will win, and their fans will rejoice in a great flood of emotion. It would be more powerful in Vancouver, of course, where the Cup has not been won in 40 years of existence. But in Boston, the wait is 38 seasons and counting, so it will be powerful either way. For a lot of people, playing or watching, this will be is the game of their lives. Drop the puck. Let it begin, and let it end.